New local food co-ordinator for GVG

Hi, Marie-Claire here. Many of you already know me as a GVG shop assistant. This month I began working as GVG local food co-ordinator as well.

Thank you to Helen Coxan, who has done the job with brio for the past two years and has achieved a lot, especially considering we only get four hours a week. She organised two very popular local food festivals, launched our garlic challenge, which encourages as many local growers as possible to grow garlic, developed a preservers' network, which is still growing (prospective preservers please do get in touch) and nurtured dozens of small, medium-sized and large local producers, who supply us with everything from rhubarb to runner beans.

We want to buy half our produce locally, ie. from within 30 miles of the shop, by 2015. That includes artisan produce, like bread, cakes and preserves, as well as dairy, eggs, fruit, veg and flowers. It's my job to try to make that happen...

In my first month I've been talking to our suppliers to find out more about how much we're buying locally and how we can improve the quality and quantity of local produce in the shop.

I called Buckley Farm Dairy in Denby Dale, who supply our milk through Michael Sykes. I found out that a lot of their milk is from within 30 miles of the shop, for example Halifax, Huddersfield and Penistone, but the dairy also sources milk from as far afield as North Yorkshire and Chesterfield. It means our milk is not local by our definition.

Our eggs, which are also distributed by Michael, come from Dunford Bridge, 12 miles away, so they are local. Longley Farm, which delivers to us twice a week, is less than 9 miles away. Great. Local.

We've got a few other large local suppliers that are central to the business, for example the Handmade Bakery, the best bakery in the north of England, nay England, and D Westwood and Son, who supply us with great quality veg and rhubarb from their farm in Thorpe, near Wakefield. Their brassicas are particularly good.

In the medium sized category are Pextenement Cheese Co, who make cheese in Todmorden, from organic Todmorden milk, Phillip Jones' Elland honey and preserves from Fiona Russell and Emma Mills, both in Marsden, and Bob Thorpe and Caroline Woodroffe, both in the Home Valley. Oh and there's Jane McGrath's cakes, which are made on Lewisham Road, a stone's throw from the shop.

Then we have lots and lots of small producers, who bring us wonderful quality stuff from their gardens and allotments. There's plenty of scope to improve the way we organise this, and I'll be sharing some ideas about it with you in future bloggage.

In the meantime I open the floor to the GVG community for ideas on how to inch towards our target during the next three years. Would you like to grow more? Would you like to help organise supplies from local growers? Do you know any wonderful local producers we haven't found yet? I'm all ears....